Exactly one year ago, as Syria's civil war was raging and the rebels had little hope of overthrowing the Baathist government, thousands of Salafist terrorists and other political Islamist armed groups organized in Idlib, led by the Hayat Tahrīr al-Sham (HTS), launched an offensive.
The Syrian National Army (formerly known as the Free Syrian Army) was one of the essentials of this ‘journey to power’. In the south of the country, in Daraa, other groups began their march to Damascus. These southern groups were the first to enter Damascus province, but HTS and its affiliates were much stronger. In the end, it was they who took the capital and overthrew the Baath regime. It was a very interesting offensive, frankly, that these proxy forces could advance so fast only with the approval and support of Washington, Tel Aviv, Ankara, Doha, Riyadh and Dubai. If we take a look at what has happened since then, we should say that ‘the aftermath is an open-ended compromise’.
‘SYRIAN GANG EMIRATES’
The state ruling in this country, which today is called the ‘Syrian Arab Republic’, should be called the ‘Syrian Gang Emirates’. An al-Qaeda remnant terrorist, whom even Moscow hosted in the Kremlin in order not to be left out of the game, can pose hand in hand and arm in arm with the presidents of European Union member states and the United States, let alone the heads of state of the countries in the region, under the title of ‘President of Syria’! His name is Ahmad al-Shara, and his al-Qaeda organization name is Abu Muhammad al-Jolani...
No matter how much make-up he wears, no matter how much international support he gets, his and his gangs' approach to Alawites, Druze, Christians and secular Sunnis is clear from what they have done in the past year... Massacres, pursuit of booty, oppression of women and everything inhuman you can think of is in their genes!
ACCORDING TO SOME, THE DAY OF CONQUEST ACCORDING TO SOME, IT IS TAMPERING...
This is the kind of person that a group of self-proclaimed liberals, radical democrats and political Islamists of all stripes cannot praise... These are the ones who celebrated the day they captured Damascus on December 8 by calling it ‘freedom’, ‘tahrir’ and ‘conquest’ day! The official name given by the government is ‘Syrian Freedom Day’.
In short, it would be useful to get to know HTS, the successor of the FSA, and the tribes that support them! HTS was a takfirist Salafist terrorist organization founded with the support of al-Qaeda. It was an organization that beheaded, massacred and focused on killing Shiites, Alawites and, in fact, anyone who was not one of them... It was supported by Western powers and changed its name to HTS when its image became too bloody. The founder of this organization was al-Jolani.
WHAT YOU CALL DELEGATED POWERS SOMEONE'S LACKEY
The FSA was founded, financed, trained and equipped by the US during the implementation of the Arab Spring plan. Some Arab countries, including the AK Party government, openly supported the FSA. From salary payments to arming them with T-24 tanks paid for by Qatar. The emergence of the FSA was greatly supported by Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State in 2012. You know, the woman who turned Libya into a bloodbath, the enemy of humanity.
Until 2016, this organization operated as an apparatus that carried out the orders of Western imperialists, and then it was disbanded. An important group within this organization was transformed into a structure used in cross-border operations under Ankara's direction and renamed the CTS. Others joined other fundamentalist terrorist organizations nestled in Idlib. The number of foreigners in both of these organizations was, and still is, not insignificant...
Chechens, Uighurs, Pashtuns, Africans and even psychopathic Europeans who have been let off the hook... Ukrainian Nazis also liked HTS, some of the weapons used by HTS after it left Idlib allegedly came from Ukraine.
These are the organizations that are said to bring freedom to Syria, and the tribes that act together with them... You know those who beat old Druze people to death in the clashes in Suwayda, some of them are tribal members! Because these tribes, who have lived under Baathist authoritarian rule for 61 years, have neither embraced the idea of a republic nor given up their deep sectarianism...
Tribal chieftains who incite hatred against Alawites and Druze are ready and willing to commit all kinds of massacres in pursuit of booty.
‘IN THE FORCED RULE OF THE 'GOLANIANS' GOLAN HILLS UNDER OCCUPATION
Let's come to the real disgrace and the conspiracy within a conspiracy!... December 8, whatever you call it, whether you call it Tahrir or Conquest, is actually the holiday of a conspiracy, because there is no state, no national unity, no stability, no freedom, no independence! Like a black comedy, the Golan Heights, which the former terrorist and current de facto president calls al-Qaeda, is under occupation. Not only the Golan Heights, but also a significant part of the southwest of the country... Israeli troops can operate as they please in the Damascus countryside. The Druze, their protégés, even have an unnamed state in this region.
Just a little to the east, Tenaf is under the control of the US military and ISIS remnants are being fed there ‘just in case, just in case’. A significant part of northern and eastern Syria is under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)...
In parts of this region, tribes have established their own fiefdoms and are open to any kind of bargaining. Money talks, power talks...
A COUNTRY IN PIECES CAN IT BE INDEPENDENT?
In the north of the country, Turkey maintains control over territory it took from the SDF in cross-border operations. In the west, in Latakia, Homs, Hama, gangs within HTS and other Salafist organizations kill and kidnap Alawites, confiscate property and rape women on an almost daily basis.
If Christians are only marginally affected by these attacks, it is only because al-Jolani and his gangs are afraid of incurring the wrath of their Western masters, and for no other reason.
The future of the country depends, at least for a while, on an agreement between HTS and the SDF... This way, at least, al-Jolani will be able to pretend that he is running a state... However, it is certain that the SDF will not be unconditionally integrated into the government in Damascus. In other words, there will be an unnamed federation in Syria... Washington will have the final say in the negotiations between the US, Israel, Turkey and the Gulf. Maybe the United Kingdom and the European Union will have some influence... And that is if it can be a temporary solution. The roads will be paved for a destabilization that looks like stabilization.
NO SECURITY, NO STATE NO INDEPENDENCE AT ALL!
For now, there are two communities without a protector. One is the Alawites and the other the Turkmens... Ankara wants the Turkmens to join the reactionary authoritarian regime led by HTS. They too seem helplessly resigned. There is no one to protect the Alawites. If it were not for the Russian bases in Hmeymin and Tartus, there is not a single sheltered area where they could escape the massacres and save their lives.
It seems that Damascus wants to consolidate its power without angering Moscow too much. For this reason, Russian bases will remain in Syria for the time being. If it is unable to control the al Colani gangs and the attacks against the Alawites escalate, it may even tolerate Russian control in the region. For the time being, it is possible to say that Moscow has reached a compromise with Damascus to keep its bases in the eastern Mediterranean.
Having been expelled from Syrian territory with most of its proxy forces, it is already impossible for the Islamic Republic of Iran to re-establish a presence in Syria in the short term. Tehran is dealing with its own problems, the economic crisis, the necessity to deal with the wounds of the operations, and now it is facing a drought... The Western Bloc is now trying to push Iran's proxy forces out of Iraq. There is also the possibility that an operation against Hashd al-Shaabi could turn Iraq into hell. So Tehran has no power to spare for Syria.
WHO NEEDS A HOLIDAY?
So what is al Colani celebrating today at the Umayyad Mosque? Probably not independence, ‘At the 23rd Doha Forum on ’One Year of the New Syria: Assessing Progress, Opportunities and Challenges' at the 23rd Doha Forum Patting the Arab leaders on the back!.
It is a terrible joke to talk about independence in a country if the celebrant of Independence Day is a terrorist who is a pawn of others. Especially when there is no one celebrating except a fraction of Sunni Arabs, foreign takfiri Salafist terrorists and states in Syria celebrating their own victories or trying to get a share of the loot!